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Tag: star wars

I finally went to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi this week after waiting it out and trying very hard to avoid internet spoilers. My patience was rewarded (of sorts) as I went to see it outside of peak hours at the local Guildford Odeon.

ALAS!

Using my Odeon Limitless pass to book the showing was one of the most difficult things I’ve experienced so far during the time I’ve had the subscription. I wanted to go to an earlier showing, but for some reason, the Odeon’s website was playing up. I wasn’t able to book the same slot again, or the later slot. For some reason, Odeon’s website locked off all uses of the Limitless cad and refused to let me use it.

More error codes then there were stars in heaven.

As the Odeon is now very heavily reliant on the website for bookings, the availability of customer service via telephone is rather limited (9am – 4pm Monday – Thursday, 9am – 5pm Friday at all other times). I was booking this on Friday evening.

What really got my goat was that Odeon does not publish email addresses. Internet standards are ignored – an email to webmaster@odeon.co.uk bounced. This is extremely bad practice, Odeon. Let me, as a customer, choose how to contact you. Web forms aren’t always appropriate.

I had to wait until the following morning to call and try and sort this out – and even then, not much could be done. The system enabled me to book for the later Monday performance, but there wasn’t confirmation that credit I used from an Odeon Gift card to upgrade seating would be refunded immediately.

I popped along to the Odeon on Monday and found this:

As I didn’t use a debit or credit card for this booking, I usually pick up tickets at the Box Office. So I had to go to the confectionary counter to figure out what was going on. I was told that the ATM machines can dispense tickets with a booking reference, but it’s not entirely obvious from the choices on display:

Perhaps Odeon needs to reword that third option – just say that if you have a booking reference, you can pick up tickets using that rather than implying it may only be for Tesco and Business Voucher holders.

The third complaint was that it appears Odeon do not sell Butterkist Toffee Popcorn. I’m not a fan of the sweet or regular flavoured stuff served in buckets the size of my head. In the end, I chose Aero mint balls and the smallest Coke Zero at the extortionate price of £6.68. I’ll pay it, however, because I do like the Odeon and would still like to see cinemas remain in business. But if I had a family, kids and all, this would definitely bankrupt me if we visited regularly.

As for the film? It was alright. I think the sooner the main franchise moves away from the Skywalkers, the better.